Dirty Window

In the latter years of my Grandfather’s life, rather than go to a nursing home, he was blessed with in home help, including in home care and a couple of cleaning ladies.

The title of cleaning lady was only a formality, seeing as how there is no title for two women that come to an old man’s home weekly for two hours and do virtually nothing. They normally stayed for two hours, during which they vacuumed, did a few other modest house chores, and enjoyed an hour-long coffee break. Perhaps scam artist would be most descriptive.
However, there was no getting rid of them. Despite the fact that they cleaned nothing above or below their field of vision, they were part of Grandpa’s routine. He knew that they were good for nothing, but they had been coming since before my Grandmother passed away he really didn’t like change.

Betty, on the other hand, actually took pride in her work and would regularly dust, scrub and shine anything the “cleaning ladies” refused to touch.

On one particular week when I was visiting Grandpa, Betty became disgusted by the state of the large picture window in the living room. Betty went out in the back yard with a bottle of glass cleaner and a roll of paper towels and didn’t come back until both panes of glass had been scrubbed and the cobwebs cleared from between. The window shined like it hadn’t in months.

When the cleaning ladies came in, they looked at the immaculately cleaned picture window and expressed with mock disappointment “Oh, we were going to clean the window today, but looks like it has already been cleaned.

Without missing a beat, Grandpa replied with the boldest of lies.

“Oh, a bird came and shit all over the window and Betty couldn’t stand it so she went out and cleaned the window,” said Grandpa.

The two women accepted the explanation, not taking so much as a second to question how this talented bird prompted Betty to clean between the two panes of glass.

I listened from the next room in awe; biting my tongue to keep from laughing. At 92-years of age, my Grandfather could lie with the best of them.